How to get an Architecture Job during the Pandemic, a Step-by-Step Guide by a Recruitment Specialist

0051 - How to get an Architecture Job during the Pandemic, a Step-by-Step Guide by a Recruitment Specialist
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Introduction and Current Job Market Concerns
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Stephen Drew: Hello everyone, I am Stephen Drew, founder of the Architecture Social and head of the architecture team at McDonald and Company. I'm getting a lot of questions at the moment because it's a stressful time. People are asking me, is it still possible to get a job during the pandemic? You know, it seems like there's not many jobs out there.

Stephen Drew: Should we give up? Should we stop the search for now? And the answer is no. Do not stop because yes, there are jobs out there. You just need to change the way that you are looking for these jobs and have a different approach. And I am still confident that you can make a lot of progress and you can still push towards getting that job, whether you're an architectural graduate.

Stephen Drew: An architect or a senior architect or technologist in the industry. Here are a few of my ideas and suggestions on how to go about getting that job during this tricky time based upon when I was a part one, looking for a job during the 2009 economic [00:01:00] crash, as well as all the years of experience I've had in industry as an architectural recruitment specialist.

Stephen Drew: Okay, let's go for him.

Organizing Your Job Search
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Stephen Drew: Okay, so a really important part of every job search that you do throughout your career is you need to be organized. Because this is going to make it so much easier when you're halfway through the job process and near the end. Trust me, I've been there. It is always better to be organized.

Stephen Drew: And one of the ways that I've made it easy for you to get organized is by And you can check the link below.

Using Airtable for Job Applications
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Stephen Drew: I've got a link to this completely free air table, which I've made, which should streamline your search. So let's have a little look at what we've done. You can see here on the front tab, I've got a jobs page.

Stephen Drew: So the idea on this is that whenever you see a job online, you put, and that you want to apply for, you can put it here, whether it's for a recruitment agent, Put it down, you can say that a recruitment agent has told you about it, and as well as that, you can see here that I've got a tag for job board, you can see there's a tag [00:02:00] for the actual job description, and as well as that, the role.

Stephen Drew: So it's really important to be organized, and you can see what I'm doing here is I'm also listing the software within the job, and as well as that, the sectors. And the location. So this is going to be really, really easy for you to filter down in the long run. What you actually need and more important as well is the status, because when you get that awesome feeling that an employer wants to invite you for an interview, you need to be organized and you need to as well.

Stephen Drew: One of the most important bits of this is the actual date and when the CV sent, because I want you to be so brutal with yourself that if you haven't heard from the company in one to two days, when you send the CV. You're going to give them a call and then if after that they say they've got the CV, they're processing it, then great.

Stephen Drew: But then if you don't hear from them in another week, then you give them another call. So you set up in your diary to call someone the day or two after they received the CV to make sure they got it and the week after [00:03:00] to see if there's any feedback.

Proactive Job Application Strategies
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Stephen Drew: And until they say you're successful or not, During the pandemic, you have to be proactive.

Stephen Drew: You have to go out of your comfort zone and you have to call up these companies. So this tab is a really good way to do it. And as well as that, I've got another tab here called companies, which you can see gives a little bit of an overview of the practices and over time you can build up to this. Build up this database so it's yours forever.

Stephen Drew: It's a little work now, but in the long run, you'll have this. So when you're next looking for your search, you can see all the companies and all the details you found before, including the website, the emails, the phones. A little bit of work at the start, but you'll have this forever. And when you get to the interview process, it's really simple.

Stephen Drew: Keep a simple list of when your interviews are at. The interview time, the interview dates, because after you've had your interview, you can follow up a day or two after saying, thank you very much for the interview. And as well as that, uh, in a week's time, you can chase them up for feedback. [00:04:00] So check out this free air table.

Stephen Drew: I'll put the links below and have fun with it. Feel free to customize it. This is just, I think, a good start. And as well as that, I've got some resources in the back as well, which I will talk about in a bit.

Personal Experience During the 2009 Recession
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Stephen Drew: Okay, so let's wind the clocks back to 2009. Like I said, when I was looking, when I was in industry and I graduated, it was 2009 during the global recession.

Stephen Drew: So it was a difficult time and there was definitely a fear, uh, feeling within the studio of fear. No one was quite sure what they would do if they were jobs out there. And a lot of people were still sending a CV and portfolio to one or two of their favorite companies. Whereas my friend will. And he basically started applying to a lot of architectural practices.

Stephen Drew: And what was interesting is he was getting interviews and what was even more interesting and blew my mind at the time is that he was applying to companies, which they didn't even have a job at on their website. He just went for [00:05:00] it. And this was a model that I kind of took to heart as well. And I firmly believe that it really helped me get my job.

Stephen Drew: So you can see here. This is in my inbox, all the people that replied to me at the time saying there was no job, there was no room at the inn, but from it I managed to get one or two CVs, so you've got to have a thick skin, look at this, unfortunately we're not looking for a role, all these great companies, you can't take it personal, you've got to be out there, but to do that you need to send your CV to 800 to 1, 000 companies, now I'm sure you're thinking, you've Wow, that's completely different to what I've been, I've heard some people have been saying to me, I should only apply to the practices you like, the ones you love.

Maximizing Job Application Volume
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Stephen Drew: Yes, apply to them at the start, but you've got to cast the net out there because it's a global pandemic. So, I think the takeoff from everything here is that if you are a graduate, especially you should apply to all the architectural practices in the UK. And if you are someone in industry [00:06:00] who's done a few more years, well, maybe you're not going to send it to quite a thousand, but I want you to challenge yourself away from, uh, sending 10 CVs now to 100, 200.

Stephen Drew: So volume is key during the pandemic. Okay, so we've established that we need to get organized. I've given you the table to do it. And as well as that, I've shown you that in the past, you need to send your CV out to lots of companies during a recession or a pandemic to maximize the probability that they're going to get back to you.

Stephen Drew: So, you can't just rely on job boards. You know, if you go to a website such as Dezeen, let me bring this up now. So, we're going to go to Dezeen Jobs, right? Which is A job board, which has a lot of listings on at the moment. Chances are that a lot of people, because it's a popular job, but they're going to apply to these roles.

Stephen Drew: So sure, send your CV to it, but these are going to be the most competitive roles on the job market right now, because everyone has easy access to them.

Finding Hidden Job Opportunities
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Stephen Drew: So [00:07:00] what you need to find in this pandemic to stand out, you need to find roles, which are off the beaten path. So there's five rows which are online and you can find online, either in obscure places, maybe on the Architectural Practices Direct webpage, you know, you can look there for job openings.

Stephen Drew: And as well as that, don't just wait for job openings, send them your CV anyways, because they might advertise for the job next week, but you're going to get in there early. So there's part three Architect Row. Sure, you could apply for that, but chances are there's going to be loads of applicants. So what you want to do is first thing is go on Google Maps.

Stephen Drew: Sounds simple, right? I actually live in this area. So the first thing I would do is start by where you live and closest to you and build it out, build it out, build it out. And whenever you find a practice, so Birwell Architects, I, for instance, would then go onto their website. And I would actually look for a job on there.

Stephen Drew: So let's see, so you can [00:08:00] actually go to Birwell Architects. You would put all these details in, you would put the information, you would add a new, add a new car, you add a new role. You put all the information of the Birwell Architects and you double check on their job page, whether there's a job. So I'm sure if you look on the websites, normally you go down to contact details.

Stephen Drew: Normally sometimes. There's a page somewhere where you can find a job board. So check all this, but even still, I would, there on the little look here, I can't see a job page on here, but that doesn't stop me. I would send an email to info at BurwellArchitects. com and I would send you a CV and portfolio and say that you are a part one, or you are part two, or you're an architect who's happened to be looking just in case, here's a CV and portfolio because you're interested in Burwell's work.

Stephen Drew: Spend a bit of time on the website, have a little look at their projects, have a little look at the stuff they would do, and then go through it. So here we can see that you've got some interesting, uh, so you can see at the moment [00:09:00] whether this is residential or commercial. This sounds like adaptable workspace, so any examples that you've done of commercial buildings or you're interested in that would stand out.

Stephen Drew: Have a quick little look, mention it in the top line or two, send the CV off. Spend 5 10 minutes, quick look, customize it, send it off. So that's one way to go through it and find, um, ideas of places to apply for. And then you would keep going using that method. You can see here, adding them, adding them to your database as you go along.

Utilizing RIBA List and Google Maps
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Stephen Drew: And the next thing that I would actually look at is the RIBA list. I mean, this is a pretty hardcore way of doing it, but basically you can download this. I put the link in the resources section here. So the link is in the free job template, which you can load up. On Airtable, and you can see that the list is basically like a book that RIBA publish and, but if you go through it, so you've got to click through quite a few pages, but you get there and it [00:10:00] starts listing architectural practices.

Stephen Drew: So I wonder what page it's on. Let's have a quick look together. Okay. So I got there in the end. You can see now we're on page 300. And what you can see here is architectural practices, all the contact details, and you can click the links and click the emails and you can go to there. That took quite some time, but so what I worked out halfway through recording that is that if you go down to the bottom, you can skip to the page.

Stephen Drew: So I think like 250, uh, maybe a little bit more, the actual list of architectural practices start. So between everything now you've got. The Excel table, you've got the Airtable, you've got, uh, here, the RIBA list. I've put the link of that in the Airtable as well. And using the Google, just going on Google maps and methodically going through every architectural practice, looking on their website to see if you can find a job board.

Stephen Drew: And if not, like me, when I went on Bill Willis website and I couldn't find anything, you still send the CV to them and a portfolio as a speculative [00:11:00] application. Because you're being helpful. If they're looking for that job, they're going to welcome your CV. As long as you're polite, that's no problem. And then you can follow up in a day or two.

Stephen Drew: Make sure that you push yourself and you send your CV to 800 to 1000 places if you're a graduate. And as an architect, instead of sending your CV to 20 places, Try and challenge yourself to 100, 200.

Final Tips and Encouragement
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Stephen Drew: Thank you so much for watching everyone. To summarize that I think during the pandemic, you can still get a job, but you have to change the way you go about the job search and what I would love you to try We can call it the Architecture Social special or the method that worked for me, which was to send your CVs out to more places to see, to architectural practices you would maybe haven't heard of yet.

Stephen Drew: You haven't considered using Google, using the RIBA list and writing it all down and keeping a good log of it. [00:12:00] In an Airtable or an Excel document so that you're organized and you can follow up afterwards. The most persistent people and the people that go out of their comfort zone to send their CV to places to call up afterwards, uh, they're the ones that are going to get the job.

Stephen Drew: And the good news is everyone can do it. You've just got to start. So, if you're feeling in a little bit of a rut, pick yourself up from it. Try my method, think of it as the second way, the second approach. So what you've been doing up until now, that's one approach. Try this one. Rough rule, 1, 000 CVs, 10 interviews, one to two job offers.

Stephen Drew: If you think like that, as in the funnel effect of, I CV to a thousand places to get 10 interviews. And from 10 interviews, you're probably going to get a one to two offers because it's competitive right now. Um, And by doing that and having that mind frame, [00:13:00] hopefully you will get the job. Let me know your thoughts.

Stephen Drew: I hope this is helpful. I will be doing more and more content. I think next week I'm going to talk about portfolios. Last week I did CVs. If you like this stuff, please do subscribe because it is so helpful for me to get the feedback and as well as that you can be kept up to date with more and more of the content that we are producing at the Architectural Social and guides like this.

Stephen Drew: Have a fantastic evening, morning, wherever you are. Good luck. Try the search and let me know how it goes. You can do this.